Baking with Rachel Raye: Strawberry Pie

Howdy partners!

This summer I have been expanding my Pinterest boards and picking up new sweets and decorating ideas for parties and hang outs with my friends. I’m not really good at cooking ‘real food’, but I love baking. Something I want to do with this blog is start uploading my Pinterest baking results (both fails and not-quite-fails-but-not-really-a-success) so that should you want to try it, you have all of my knowledge of the recipe at your disposal. I’m going to start by giving you the recipe to a favorited strawberry pie that my Grandma Selby gave me the recipe to, that I have changed to fit my Mom’s taste. It’s pretty easy to make (in my novice opinion), it just takes a bit of time.

Mash enough strawberries to measure 1 cup (I like to mash and drain them so there are no skins-it looks more like a sauce or a juice rather than a bunch of mashed berries. But if you like that extra bit of texture, it’s all up to you!).

Mix sugar and cornstarch in a saucepan; stir in water and crushed berries. Cook over medium hear, stirring constantly until mixture thickens and boils. Boil and stir 1 min and let cool. (Don’t let it cool too much or it will become a jelly that is rather hard to pour. Make sure that you are continuously stirring or the bottom of the mixture will scorch and not only will you be sad, but your mixture will also clump and separate and all of these horrible things that you don’t want to happen to you).

Fill shell with remaining berries and pour cooked berries/ berry mixture on top. (For the remaining berries (raspberries or strawberries, this recipe is interchangeable, I like to cut them in 1/8ths because it makes the pie smoother, but cut chunks at your own discretion. I won’t judge you).

Chill at least 3 hours (you’ve earned it). Let the pie do the same, or let pie chill until set.

Tips and Tricks:

If you’re going to make these in bulk, I recommend only doing 2 at a time, they turn out better than trying to do 4.

When at Walmart or Schnuks, the big boxes of strawberries make 2 pies

Don’t let pie chill too long or it will want a pair of RayBans and an ecig.

When pitting strawberries, you can use a spoon to dig the core out to eliminate danger of using knives, and it does a really good job.

Attached to this post is a really crappy picture of my first attempt at this pie sitting in my boyfriend’s fridge. I’m available for weddings and bat/bar mitzvahs. #professional photographer (please note this picture was taken before the pie set, so it is not the finished product).

The end result will be almost a Jell-O filling for your pie.

Cream cheese layer can be hard to put in pie, and should the need arise, it is easy to use fingers to spread, but make sure your hands are clean (duh)